In Penza, the arrest of those involved in the Network case was extended

In Penza, the courts extended the arrest of seven defendants in the Network case. This was reported on the website of Rupression, a campaign in support of those involved in the case.

On October 10, hearings were held by Maxim Ivankin, Mikhail Kulkov, Andrey Chernov, Arman Sagynbaev, Dmitry Pchelintsev, and on October 16 - by Ilya Shakursky and Vasily Kuksov.

The preventive measure for all seven was extended until January 18 to familiarize themselves with the case materials. The hearings were held behind closed doors, despite the fact that lawyers petitioned against this.

“Comrades and relatives came to support the guys. At the trial, the guys were cheerful, joked, talked with relatives,” they write on the website.

• According to investigators, “Network” is a terrorist organization, which allegedly has cells in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Penza and Belarus. In total, 11 anarchists and anti-fascists from St. Petersburg and Penza are involved in the case. Law enforcement officers believe that community members were preparing terrorist attacks in Russia in order to stir up an armed rebellion.
• The defendants in the Network case talked about psychological pressure, electric shock torture and weapons that FSB officers planted on them. Some of them refused to confess and said that they gave them under torture.
• In Penza in the fall of 2017, anti-fascists Ilya Shakursky, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Andrei Chernov, Arman Sagynbaev and Vasily Kuksov were arrested on charges of participation in the “Network” (Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code). Another person involved in the case, Yegor Zorin, was placed under house arrest.
• On July 5, two more defendants in the case were arrested in Penza - Mikhail Kulkov and Maxim Ivankin. They were accused of preparing for the production or sale of drugs on a large scale (clause “d” of Part 4 of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code with the use of Part 3 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code). In June, the case of Ivankin and Kulkov was added to the case of the Network organization. Before this, the young people were detained in March 2017 along with anti-fascist Alexey Poltavets and accused of drug possession. According to Poltavets, after their arrest they were tortured and beaten, demanding to testify against their friends from the anti-fascist environment.
• On September 6, it became known that Sagynbaev spoke about torture for the first time. Other defendants in the case - Dmitry Pchelintsev , Ilya Shakursky , Viktor Filinkov - and a witness in the case in St. Petersburg , Ilya Kapustin , also reported electric shock torture and beatings by FSB officers. He was forced to leave Russia and asked for political asylum in Finland.
• On September 12, Pchelintsev filed a statement with the prosecutor's office of the Penza region, in which he stated that FSB investigator Valery Tokarev forced him to admit guilt of participating in a terrorist community. According to the anti-fascist, if he agreed to these conditions, the investigator promised to mitigate the charges.